Grab Your Edition Brother One Cell: An American Coming Of Age In South Koreas Prisons By Cullen Thomas Disseminated As Volume

for some inexplicable reason you are determined to address any deficits in your knowledge of the Korean people/peninsula by reading the bookified blog of a navelgazing white boyturnedman with poor judgement, this is your book.


sitelinkAnother reviewer was understated and accurate: "this is no Peter Hessler doing jail time in Korea, " There's a Korean proverb that says a true man only cries atmoments in his life: when he is born, when his parents die, and when he dies, But this book has dudes straight up bawling in their jail cells from all the suffering that drives some of them even to the point of insanity, Brother One Cell shows you the experience of an American adjusting to Korean society within a prison, and is also a great reminder that prisoners are still people just like everyone else.
There are scenes where they sacrifice cheese sandwiches for another inmates birthday present, or parts where they try to smoke anything they can to get high, At one point they try to smoke peanut shells and shit tryna escape the reality of prison, OH YEAH AND KIMCHI. shit is good. Although I've been in Korea for just about eight months now, it wasn't until reading Brother One Cell that I actually took the time to appreciate where I am, Sure, I've reveled a bit in this unique opportunity, especially to those back home, but I never really do so objectively, What's worse is that as I'm often frustrated with 'work,' I find myself complaining about a number of things totally unrelated, In turn, even though I really have enjoyed Korea, I frequently view it in a negative light, clumping together my experience working here and my experience living here,

This book helped me to reaffirm the notion that I've held all along that my complaints are hardly worth voicing in that not only is it my choice to be here, but I really do have the opportunity to leave at any time, unlike Cullen Thomas did in during his three and a half year sentence which he served in full behind bars in Korea.


While Cullen Thomas was locked up in Korean prison against his will and I am merely 'stuck in Seoul' by choice as I like to say, his story resonates deeply with my experience here in the Hermit Kingdom.
From battling ajummas in the subway to receiving flurries of ridiculous cautionary tales, Cullen's time teaching in Korea seems very much like what I myself am going through, He even accurately captures the mental exhaustion that I experience everyday despite only putting in aroundhours a week!

Where our stories diverge is when Cullen is arrested and sent away on charges of drug smuggling.
From then on Brother One Cell offers the casual reader a glimpse into the dark and unknown world of being locked up abroad, Luckily for Cullen, and the faint of heart, his torment seemed to be mostly mental as he was spared or at least the reader is spared of any horrid physical torture or brutality.


What I found incredibly fascinating about this book was not that it was a tale of danger and deceit but rather how accurately and objectively Cullen presented Korean culture that is all too foreign to Westerners, even those of us living it day to day! The prisons, just like the

rest of Korea, adhered to a strict set of Confucian principles that finds its strength in unquestioned adherence to tradition and more importantly a rigid hierarchical status structure.


To see this same set of principles so vividly reflected in Cullen's life behind bars was simply shocking, Rather than constantly fighting one another to survive as is 'expected' among American prisoners, Korea's inmates still follow the same rules of respect and status that they would out in the open.
One of my favorite examples of this is prisoners remembering to use the polite form of the word when they swear at the guards,

This was a fantastic and simple read that was made much better by my actually living the experience for myself, Well, half the experience at least, as I've yet to visit a Korean prison, Oh, and on that note, to top it all off I walk outside to a view of Suraksan each day, the same mountain that Cullen could only stare longingly at from his bleak cell in the city just north of my Uijongbu.
As for me, well, I'm able to hike it whenever I want, if I wake up early enough!

Sometimes you forget just how lucky you are, Brother one cell sure helped to remind me! The writing itself is nothing extraordinary, but the story and cultural insight make it very worth it, The author also happens to be my writing teacher, so there is something about reading about your mentor's years in a Korean prison that does sort of give you a new view of things.
That aside, this is a book that stayed with me in many ways, as it explores the ways we take for granted our surroundings and privilege, and the unexpected results of chance, luck, and the choices and mistakes we make.
It is very much a prison story, of which there are many, but more so it is a comingofage story of a person who, ultimately, achieves something very like grace.
I like this book since it illustrates a bit of how the Korean penal system works as opposed to the Soviet, French, American, Chinese, and Guantanamo ones do /been researching but it is concerning since this is where my little sister is going soon, as her boyfriend is doing what the author Cullen Thomas did, teaching English in South Korea.


It's one of those memoirs without an index, so I can't quickly refer to useful pages, as I won't do it manually, Hence I don't like it more than just average, My copy was missing the last few pages, If my copy was complete then probably between two, The book got better but never really impressed me with the story, Thomas McFadden is the better prison writer, Bangkok Hilton also, Korean prison is not alien enough to impress me, perhaps not, That personal reflections ought to be included in prison literature is logical, yet the reflections on his ancestor were not woven well, The conclusion was engaging and one must ponder what the last pages may contribute to a book, Having lived in Korea formonths studying abroad, this book brought back a lot of memories about my AWESOME time there, Of course, there are some dumb people who decide to do stupid things like Thomas and pays the price, At least he was able to make this sour experience into something fruitful, The book is an honest portrayal of a foreigner's experience of Korea and the many societal differences between Korean and the U, S. Believe it or not, I just read this novel for the second time, It holds up. I liked the author's voice in this memoir, Cullen Thomas takes the reader on an amazing journey as we meet a young man caught for smuggling drugs who believes he's special and entitled because he's an American, who transforms into a gracious, accepting deep thinker.
The novel has some gritty descriptions and Thomas tells the story in a logical totally believable way, It also offers a picture of South Korea, a place a knew very little about, It's a great read. I am bumping this one up to five, I have to see if Cullen Thomas continued writing, Bravo! As a first generation Korean American, I could somehow relate to this story, Although I have never been in any prison, the author does well at explaining the Korean culture and give a lot of Korean dialogue in the book, Instead of overacting on the narration with unbearable Asian accents, the narrator using his natural voice, tries to speak the foreign dialogue as best as they can, I've listened to many books over the years where the narration of the story ruins the book because they try to portray the characters too much, where you cannot really listen to them any longer.


The base of this story is about an American, going to Korea, getting caught of having weed and being sentence to prison and understanding the culture and life because of it.


The story was okay, I mean, unlike the United States where you pretty much get a slap on the hand for drugs, overseas countries takes narcotics more seriously and maybe that is a lesson to be learned onto itself.
Cullen Thomas's memoir, Brother One Cell, is a thriller about an American college graduate, nicknamed the Jolly Marauder, who grew up on Long Island dreaming about pirates, adventure, and becoming a storyteller someday.
Armed with an English major and big plans, Cullen took a job teaching English to school children in South Korea, quickly realizing that it was an insufferable grind, So he came up with a new plan: smuggling hashish into the country from Malaysia to finance a proper tour of the world, A friend had done it successfully, but Cullen got caught while collecting his contraband in the post office and was sent to prison for three and a half years, I've always been drawn to prison and war memoirs because they are like life only intensified, so you read looking for lessons about survival, Brother One Cell could be dark, but it is full of humor, poetry, and philosophy, From his cell window, Cullen could see a tree in the courtyard where he played basketball with murderers, thieves, drug dealers, and human traffickers, The tree kept getting cut down and down and down, but never lost its grace and dignity, This book is readable but not so enjoyable, It is not the "Peter Hessler doing jail time in Korea" kind of book I was expecting, If you are interested in the mundane life of Asian prisoners, this book is for you, Other than that this book doesn't offer much, It could be that being an Asian myself, I don't find S, Korea that strange, as the author did, Readable but not particularly enjoyable, Mr. Thomas consistently comes off as a bit of a jerk, and his comments on women are repulsive, His constant references to his exgirlfriend's body were uncessary and for her I'm sure quite insulting, Interesting insights into Korean culture, but not enough to compensate for how lame Cullen is, .